๐ emojis
Emojis allow peopleโespecially youthโto express complex emotions, mental health struggles, and social nuance in a fast, safe, and universally understood visual language.
know your heart emojis!
โค๏ธ Basic love. Default. Safe. Boring. Used by boomers or someone being earnest.
๐ฉท Feminine, sweet, soft girl energy. Often paired with โจ. Used in romantic thirst or TikTok edits.
๐ Energetic pink love โ bubbly, chaotic good, often in anime and hyper-pop fandoms.
๐ Glittery queen energy. Gen Z baddie mode. Often ironic or over-the-top affectionate.
๐ฉต Calm, neurodivergent-coded love. Often used in soft boy/girl content. Low-stimulation affection.
๐ Trust and loyalty vibes, especially in friend zones. Also sometimes used by BTS ARMY.
๐ BTS (Taehyung coined โI purple youโ). LUST. Also means deep affection, royalty vibes. Stan Twitter fav.
๐ Jealousy, envy, or nature-core. Can be low-key shade depending on tone. Also used in Minecraft/creeper contexts.
๐ Friend love, not romantic. Cheerful, non-threatening. If used by a crush = you're in the bin.
๐งก Almost love. Warm but not intense. Seen in โclose but not datingโ dynamics.
๐ค Emo, edgy, goth, grief-core. Deep feelings, sometimes for dramatic flair or sad girl energy.
๐ค Pure, spiritual, angelic love. Can be used in mourning, or by VSCO/y2k girls. Soft aesthetic.
๐ฉถ Subtle, emotionally numb, depression-coded. Also new aesthetic: quiet luxury, grayscale mood.
๐ Not just heartbreak โ also used sarcastically in roast jokes ("that hurt fr").
โค๏ธโ๐ฅ Lust, passion, baddie thirst, crush on main. Often paired with ๐ฅ or ๐ฅต.
โค๏ธโ๐ฉน Healing from heartbreak. Used in trauma or recovery-themed posts.
a brief cultural history of the emoji, focusing on its evolution in relation to the mental health crisis โ especially among young people
๐น๏ธ 1990sโ2000s: The Birth of Emoji
Emoji (็ตตๆๅญ, "picture characters") were first developed in Japan in the late 1990s by Shigetaka Kurita for mobile platforms. They were simple, joyful, and designed to enrich texting with emotional nuance in a digital space lacking facial expression. By the 2000s, emoji had quietly gone global via iOS and Android keyboards, spreading first as novelty, then as social glue.
At this point, mental health conversations were still largely offline, stigmatized, or wrapped in academic or clinical language. Emojis had no mental health associationโyet.
๐ฒ 2010โ2015: Social Media + Sad Faces
As emoji became standard in texting, Twitter, and early Instagram, young users began expressing emotional lows using the simplest emoji tools available:
๐, ๐ข, ๐ฉ, ๐, or even just the black heart ๐ค
These became ways to subtly signal distress, sadness, heartbreak, or loneliness in a shareable, socially โsafeโ form.
During this time, mental health language slowly entered youth spaces โ but emoji were still mostly a passive emotional aid, not a political or cultural tool.
๐ง 2015โ2020: Emojis Become Mental Health Code
As anxiety, depression, and neurodivergence awareness exploded across platforms like Tumblr, YouTube, and Twitter, emoji began to function as code within online peer support:
๐ง = brain overload or โIโm neurodivergentโ
๐ตโ๐ซ, ๐ฅด, ๐ฌ = burnout, overstimulation, awkwardness
๐ = "I'm dead" = overwhelmed, hilarious, or just done
๐ง = isolation, awkward vibes
๐ฉ = toxic relationships, red flags
Users repurposed emoji to sidestep stigma. They could express suicidal ideation, trauma, or ADHD burnout without writing it outright.
๐ง 2020โ2023: TikTok, Memes, and the Trauma-Core Aesthetic
During the COVID pandemic and following lockdowns, emoji were no longer just symbolsโthey became mental health storytelling devices:
๐ช = โfighting demonsโ (slang for inner battles)
๐ซ = emotional meltdown / social exhaustion
๐ง = chaotic neurospicy goblin mode
๐ชฉ = dancing through trauma / queer-coded joy
These were mixed with โจ ironic positivity โจ or glittery despair. TikTok and Discord weaponized emojis into emotional hieroglyphics.
๐งโโ๏ธ 2024โ2025: Emoji as Social Armor
Today, with mental health issues at crisis levels in youth culture, emoji function as cultural shorthand for:
Signaling distress without triggering alarm
Offering solidarity (โ๐ง gangโ for neurodivergent folks)
Meme therapy (laughing through the ๐)
Masking pain in coded, aestheticized ways (๐ฅด๐ซ ๐ชฉ)
Emoji are now part of the digital survival kitโused to build community, signal burnout, flirt through trauma, and protest toxic positivity.
Final Thought
What started as pixel-art mood boosters are now emotional survival tools. Emoji are the modern teenagerโs mental health dialectโcompressed, symbolic, ironic, yet deeply real.
